IRS Reviewing 64,600,000 Pages of Documents for Info ‘Potentially Relevant’ to Tea Party Targeting

In a belated and incomplete response to the House Ways and Means Committee’s request for Internal Revenue Service documents relating to the agency’s targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups for heightened scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status, Acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel has informed the committee that the agency is in the process of reviewing approximately 64,600,000 pages of documents from IRS officials “who may have potentially relevant information” about the targeting.

Werfel also suggested to the committee that he believes the ultimate answers to who knew what and when in the White House and the Treasury Department about the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups will be discovered by the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration and Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department, which are conducting the administration’s internal investigations of this matter.

On May 14, House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R.-Mich.) and Ranking Member Sander Levin (D.-Mich.) sent the IRS a letter asking thirteen questions about the agency’s targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups. These questions included requests for “all documents and communications” on the matter between the IRS and the Treasury and between the IRS and the White House.

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